All Politics is now Global

Which Chinese? (Part 2)

When considering the possibility of economic warfare, the most frequently asked question is:

“Why would the Chinese hurt our economy when they are so dependent upon it and have trillions of dollars in U.S. debt?”

Our standard answer is a return question: “Which Chinese?”

It is clearly naive to believe that China is monolithic. Certainly the business community and many in the government would not want anything to hurt the American economy if it in turn hurt China. Having said that, however, there are no doubt members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) who have every intention of harming America. We proved this point once before in our post “Which Chinese?” In that post, we documented how the PLA leadership had gone around the civilian leadership, making a dramatic and aggressive statement. Now, it has happened again. Rumors have begun to surface that some military officers may have attempted a coup. Why? Because they believe that the civilian leadership has not been aggressive enough. Should anyone doubt that given the opportunity, some PLA elements would strike hard against us? The collateral damage to Chinese business would not be their primary concern.